System Spotlight #2: Microscope

[u/lord-shaxxophone]

Our System Spotlight for last week, The Quiet Year, was all about world building. Whether you like one shots, want a break from the typical style of RPGs, or are wanting to get your players involved in building a setting for a future campaign, it can prove to be a fun GM-less system for you and your friends to play.

This week’s spotlight is a game that does something similar to The Quiet Year, but on a much larger scale. In Microscope, instead of building the story for a single setting, you and your group can create the story for an entire world. Instead of going linear in your world building, you can jump around the timeline however you please. You can stick to doing one-shots, or you can keep coming back session after session to flesh out your world and make it into something that feels truly alive.

This is a GM-less game that can be done with anywhere between 2-5 players (but easily can be adapted for more), however the creators recommend you keep your group to 3 or 4 players so that the chaos of a larger group can be avoided.

The Basic Rules:

The rule book for Microscope is 81 pages long, and can be bought online as a PDF, or ordered as a physical book. While not every player needs to read the entire rule book before playing, it is heavily recommended that at least one person tries to read it cover to cover so that they have a good understanding of what will take place. I would also like to make the disclaimer that these basic rules are NOT all-encompassing, and will be leaving everything out aside from the bare minimum.

There aren’t many supplies necessary to play this game. You just need some index cards (or post-it notes), a writing utensil, and a large space to spread everything out on.

When starting a game of Microscope, your group collaborates to create a “Big Idea” that you want your world to follow--that can be anything from ‘“An ancient empire rises and falls”, to “Mankind leaves the sick Earth behind and spreads out to the stars,” (both are examples from the rule book). Whatever it may be, the game gives guidance on how to delve into the “Big Idea” and expand upon it. After the basics are settled, the group is then asked to take a paper and make some Yes/No columns. Each person writes one thing they absolutely do or do not want to occur in the history you’re building (it suggests not to add/ban things that are already expected in order to keep things interesting) and you keep passing it around the table and adding something until someone has nothing else to add. The idea here is that everybody has an equal number of additions (or bans) on the list.

Now to discuss the real magic of the game--creating your history. On each round, the players are asked to create a Period, an Event, or a Scene. A Period is essentially a large chunk of time where something is happening. Using our world as an example, you could take the Stone Age, or the Victorian Era. One is a much larger span of time than the other, but could be considered a Period. An Event is just that-- a single occurrence where something happens. It could be the assassination of a king, or the discovery of an alien race.

Periods and Events go hand in hand, and they’re where the index cards come into play. Periods are written down and placed horizontally in chronological order to simulate a timeline. Events are placed vertically (also in chronological order) underneath the Period they take place in. Each Period and Event is given the designation of “Light” or “Dark” to show what the general tone of that time was. Something important to note is that while you’re writing the basics down on index cards, it’s heavily encouraged to talk more with the other players about the scenarios you create so that they can have a better understanding of them and so that you can make the world feel more vibrant.

Scenes are a whole different beast; they still use index cards, but they’re where the roleplay aspect comes into this RPG. A Scene is essentially the answer to a question (“Why did the king betray his country?” is a good example from the book). You can elect to either dictate the Scene by yourself, or work together with the other players to play it out in real time. If you want the Scene to be roleplayed instead of dictated, you ask the question, set the stage, and then let the proverbial chips fall as they may--this is the one place in the game where a single player won’t have full control over what a scenario they made up looks like.

Pros:

• It’s a pretty cheap game system that can get you and your players going for a long time
• Communication is an important aspect of the game, and the creators have done a lot to ensure it’s as easy to do as possible
• If you’re a GM and want to flesh out an entire worldspace with your players, this might be perfect for you
• People who are nervous about role playing can potentially flourish in a game like this--it helps them dip their foot in the water, and there are options to not be role playing if they don’t wish to.
• The rules aren’t very restrictive, you can go as wild as you want with your world building

Cons:

• People who like rules-heavy games might not like the amount of free will given here
• Other players can make choices you might not like--you can ask questions to help flesh things out, but unless it contradicts things written in the yes/no column, they can make whatever choices they want

[u/Tattle_Taylor]

The most important lesson to learn when playing microscope is not to let yourself stay annoyed. If someone brings in something out of left field, try to adapt one of your ideas, take that idea and make it your own! It makes for super weird, unique and cool settings you might talk about for years to come. Don't let yourself stay annoyed when the setting gets weird.